Spoilers:
This love story within a love story is an absolute delight! It is the second contemporary romance I’ve read by Lauren Kate, and i hope she continues to write these sorts of love stories since I’m not a fan of the romantasy genre she’s better known for.
After reading Noa Callaway’s first book in college, Lanie Bloom was so inspired by her brilliant take on love that she gave up on the idea of following her parents’ footsteps into medicine and decided to pursue a career in publishing instead, becoming assistant to Peony Publishing’s editorial director Alix. After seven years of emails between Lanie and Peony Publishing’s top author Callaway (who has never been seen by anyone but Alix), in which she plays good cop to Alix’s bad cop when trying to get Noa to accept editorial changes to her manuscript, Alix decides to quit after having a baby. Lanie is “provisionally” promoted to editorial director so long as she can get Noa, who is four months past her deadline for her next book, to deliver a manuscript within 3 months. When they finally meet, Lanie is shocked to find that the real Noa(h) is a man, making her question everything she thought she knew about what constitutes “real love.”
As a way to break Noah out of his writer’s block and find inspiration for what he hopes will be a book that covers the entire spectrum of love, not just the beginning, Lanie proposes a series of encounters of lesser-known New York City landmarks like The Cloisters, Pomander Walk, and Gapstow Bridge in Central Park. It's pretty obvious from the first meeting at the Chess House in Central Park that, despite Noah’s true identity, they’ve become friends of sorts over the past seven years, playing virtual chess, sharing bits of their lives, and Noa even sending tulips to Lanie after each new book is published. So, it’s fun to see how Noah incorporates parts of their story and his feelings into the new book he’s writing.
In an author’s note, Kate says “I wanted to explore how Lanie and Noa(h) can have a stimulating intellectual argument one moment, burst out laughing the next, and share each other’s grief in the third.” I’d say that she achieved this beautifully as Lanie and Noah’s relationship segues from emails to impromptu meals where they challenge each other to train trips down to D.C. where Noah opens up about his mother’s worsening Alzheimer’s and Lanie talks about losing her mother at age 10 whose last bit of advice to her was to hold out for someone she’d “really, really love.” Noah learned about love from his romance-loving single Mom and his two “aunts” and, from that first book he wrote at age 20, Lanie discovered someone who outlined the elements that make up real love.
In addition to the central slow burn, clean romance written from Lanie’s POV, this is also a love letter to New York City, and I never tire of learning more of those out-of-the-way places that make the City so fascinating. I also really enjoyed Lanie’s grandmother, BD, a holocaust survivor and sex-positive septuagenarian who provided the maternal guidance Lanie so sorely needed. My only slight criticism is that I felt it ended a bit abruptly. I would have liked to have seen what the reaction was when Noah finally shared his true identity with his readership and what came after their kiss that we waited until the last page to get. Still a lovely romance, though, so I recommend it.
I received a complimentary ARC of this book from G.P. Putnam’s Sons through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.
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